MAPPING THE MILKY WAY- It’s harder to map our own galaxy than any of our neighbors — astronomers don’t even agree on how massive our galaxy is.

But astronomers have their ways of peering through the fog. At last week’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California, astronomers announced several new results based on these efforts which together help define the Milky Way’s structure, including the discovery of star-forming regions outlining spiral arms and a newly released survey of the mysterious magnetic field that permeates our galaxy. [link to www.skyandtelescope.com]